Taylor Swift definitely has no luck with social media. The best friend of teenage girls around the world has already had to face false pornographic images featuring her on the social network X and now her publisher, Universal, has decided to remove her, along with all of her artists, from the TikTok network . The price of fame for the extremely wealthy singer, but above all the harbinger of a new upheaval in the tumultuous history of recorded music. In both cases, the obvious culprit is artificial intelligence.
Universal, the world number one in music, announced on Tuesday January 30 that it had failed to reach an agreement with TikTok on artist remuneration and that as a result it was going to withdraw its catalog from young people’s favorite network. With the previous contract expiring on Wednesday January 31, it will in theory no longer be possible on the network to play lip service or dance to the tunes of Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Lady Gaga or Eminem. In theory, because the measure will be very complicated to enforce and we are not safe from a last minute agreement. THE “Hold me back or I’ll make a misfortune” from Universal is the latest cartridge from the group that controls nearly a third of the recorded music market in the Western world.
This standoff in any case testifies to the shift in the fight for the remuneration of Universal and, by extension, of its artists. TikTok pretends to be surprised by the reaction of the American major by denouncing the greed of a company ready to sacrifice the promotion of its singers on the platform with a billion users to earn ever more money. Universal counters that TikTok only represents 1% of its revenues and that the remuneration offered by the network is lower than that of the previous contract and corresponds neither to the true value of the artists nor to the phenomenal growth of the Chinese company.
Put your AI to work
But above all it highlights the real emerging risk. TikTok would seek to obtain forms of packages allowing it to work cheaply with its new artificial intelligence made available to subscribers. TikTok Creative Assistant aims to help brands, for their advertising, and creators to generate their own music. So, after the battle of piracy, then streaming, here is a new front that is opening up, ever more complex, blurring the boundaries between original music, plagiarism and original creation. As the growth of streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple and Deezer stalls, music is once again entering unknown territory.